Theos-Talk Archives (July 1998 Message tt00173)

>I don't know which version of the Bhagavad Gita you are reading but it
doesn't sound like one
>that gives a literal transalation of the Sanskrit.  Most of the above is
utter hogwash.   The
>Gita is all about personality and form, and marks this as the highest
goal.  Unfortunately
>impersonalist writers over the years have added their own agenda to the
Gita, totally ignored or
>twisted the direct plainly evident words or Lord Krishna and used the
whole lot to satisfy there
>own outlook.  The only Gita I would recommend (even though I don't agree
with many of the
>purports) is the Bhagavad Gita As It Is  by Swami Prabupada.  The great
benefit of this edition
>is that the translator gives the Sanskrit, Sanskrit in roman letters, a
word for word breakdown
>of each Sanskrit word followed by a paragraphical translation of the
sentence.   This is then

>followed by a purport which is the authors viewpoint or interpretation.
Although the author
>makes great show of not having altered anything and presents the Gita as
it is, because he has
>gone to great lengths with the Sanskrit as outlined above, you can clearly
see where he has in
>fact used either his or someones else's idea.

Now, Allan, you are not doing justice to the conversation if you don't look
at the book firsthand.  I am only giving a quick overview of parts that
made a great deal of sense to me and I gave a speech on the entire book at
a theosophical gathering, so don't tell me there isn't food for thought in
the whole matter.

What is so difficult or strange about the concept that egoic energy
"breathes" in and out of the lower vehicles?

The book uses "tamas, rajas, and sattvas" to describe stages of human
existence as a soul.  In other words, the first stage describes a
relatively young soul, one without a terrific number of lives in the past.
Second stage is a mid-life soul with a significant number of more lives and
the third stage is the last set of lives or an advanced ego, but its more
than this also.  You have to use your mental powers to try and see some of
the points that other people are making in their writing and be considerate
that this may actually be answering someone's questions, even if not your own.

 How did this ego arise, where did it come from, why did it come from, how did
>all these illusions transpire and why, and why are we suffering when
according to the above, the
>formation of an individual is a false or temporary state?

I'm not directing the above correspondence in answer to this type of
question.  The question I was addressing was something about "does
suffering bring us to the study of esoteric philosophy?"  One of our
members commented about her own reason for not allowing suffering was
because she wasn't sure the egoic state was one of bliss.


Is the ALL so aweful and horrible that it forces egos to suffer?

This is not about the ego suffering.  The above is written about conditions
that exist in our vehicles.  Now you are probably familiar with the thought
that suffering is a result of desire. When things are good, we remember how
much we enjoyed them or we desire experience or any number of things which
we can't acquire.

  That is what we are talking about here.  As soon as you make us all
>ONE, the one is a monster, a sado a maschist of terrible proportions
because it being one, has
>no personal free will of others to concern it's self with and can end all
this sorry mess in a
>moment.

I don't know why you are making this point. There wasn't a monster of my
creation. The difference was one of being a recipient of "soul" forces or
having those forces indrawn.

Yet this is not happening.  You cannot claim that any of us has any personal
>responsibity if all we are is a illusory projection.

Illusion is a familiar concept in spiritual science. I never said man was
illusion, only plants and animals.  They appear to exist as we exist and
yet, I believe, theosophy tries to prove they are here because man is here
and they aid us in a special way.  The REAL existence of animals and plants
are possibly elsewhere in this planetary chain.  That is the a common
theosophical thought and study.  The chains, rounds, and globes are
described in many places.  The REAL distinguishing characteristic of the
animals and plants belonging to other globes is that they are a kingdom.
They have their own turf and they WILL someday become human.  It is quite
possible that the life ensouling the plants and animals we exist with here
on earth will NEVER become human, because they belong to a separate
INVOLVING life, rather than an EVOLVING life.


 Brenda this impersonal nonsense is not
>only obvious rubbish it is very dangerous rubbish at that!

I don't find your writing pleasant or peaceful as a discussion.  I think
you can make points without being so emotionally involved with what you are
saying.  Can't you please calm down and try to discuss ideas and issues and
not be so "off the mark."  You are not referring to what I have said or
written and you are throwing out remarks that relate to nothing. Please try
to rewrite the remainder of your comments in a way that they encourage
friendly conversation and discussion.  I am not pretending to put forth
ideas that I like.  I am being sincere in studying other writers
effectively as I can without directing material to you alone. I didn't know
that you felt a need to designate yourself respondent on everything that is
written on our list. If you don't like something, why don't you wait and
see if anyone else receives anything of value from the material before
passing it off as inconceivable or incommunicable.  It was written, in our
library, and given in speech form.  Can't you at least direct your thoughts
peacefully and sensibly?  I don't know where you get any idea of
"impersonal" from what I have written.


This could be rewritten in a more discussive
tone........................................................................
. and especially, if you want to argue a book, you almost need to read it.
Love is written about later in the book, towards the end.  I can send you
the full text of my notes if you can't find the book anywhere.  Maybe you
could make more sense of the author's words than you are able to understand
my own.


>Under such notions you can forget all about love, compassion, or anything
else like it.  The
>absolute becomes a self gratifying machine, enjoying all the suffering
going on.

The reason for the suffering was that the person identified with the ego's
energies as they were playing through the forms, thereby creating an
attachment to the form side.  There wouldn't be suffering if the person had
identified with the ego as an eternal self, existing beyond the form,
because only slowly does man reach his recognition of himself as a soul.
When this is accomplished, balance and harmony reign because each new
influx of soul power is recognized as being essential to make an impact on
the small, lesser lives in the vehicles, creating characteristics in the
form which serve man well and allow us to free our attention to new vistas.
When this soul power recedes, the forms themselves are asked to continue
the vibration without the presence of the egoic force. When they learn to
accomplish this, there's no pain just capacity. Our forms are better than
the animals, for instance.  When the egoic forces, which are love and
compassion and light energy, leave, the forms continue, but there's no
energy doing the work for them and they find they have to accomplish this
without the ease and pleasure they had before.  The forms have to work, and
if they do, they accomplish progressed physical, emotional, or mental
states.  The matter and vibration becomes more built by the ego.  Matter
acting on its own, like an ego, isn't painful, is it?  So the pain arises
from something pleasureful, like love - as part of the egoic energy - being
withdrawn.  A mother, too, slowly withdraws her assistance so that her
children can accomplish activity on their own.  This isn't so unusual, so
just calm down and think.  How does a child learn to walk, except by a
letting go of those two little hands?

It is isn't,
>why doesn't it end this.  We are not individuals in reality in the view of
this writer, so what
>purpose is there to let us keep suffering or being in this universe.
Anything that arises is
>not eternal by definition.

Are you referring to yourself or to the writer of the book?  There isn't
really any mention of individuality.  Can't you perceive that egoic forces
are sent forth in different manners?  Our free will and circumstances in
life ultimately would play in with the scene.  How can you assert such
nonsense?

>>
>> What results when the egoic outpouring ends is the lesser lives try to
>> accomplish what the ego was doing ("impressing" was your choice of words).
>> If they are good at this (after a few repetitions, I suppose), then the
>> bodies are able to accomplish an egoicly initiated action AUTOMATICALLY,
>> while the ego is freed to concentrate its energies upon higher functioning.
>> The book uses as an example breathing, digestion, etc. - those things that
>> have become automatic to us.
>

>To what purpose and why, why, why?  No individuals, just one neverending
power engaged in  what?

An ego is an individual, SO STOP COMPLAINING.

>>
>>
>> If the ego did not withdraw its energies periodically, there would never be
>> the accomplishment of having our activity occur harmoniously and smoothly
>> without undue attention. This is karma. Also, The harmony we are looking
>> for is threefold: 1) outgoing Ego contacts body and outer world - this
>> repetition of contact causes automatic activity, 2) the adjustment by the
>> logoic lifewaves to keep harmony as both the Ego's bodies and the lesser
>> lives around the Ego (plants, animals, minerals) go without Egoic contact,
>> and 3) the automatic Ego impress flooding the body and keeping it
>> controlled and working efficiently.
>>
>> Now the Ego can "view" its Self in its sheaths and can experience "being"
>> this way, but the Ego cannot do so (with all of its new unfolding powers)
>> independently of the form and this is a goal, because while the Egos use
>> form to experience and learn, they're aim is to retain this coloring
>> independently of reincarnation in form. The way to learn this is for the
>> egoic energy to withdraw back into the ego, an act associated with pain.
>> Yogis are especially attentive to whether their ego is energizing the form
>> or withdrawing from the form. Their concept of non-attachment is practiced
>> so that they can experience existing beyond form. As long as these energies
>> occur in cycles, we are providing Ishvara with time with her children and
>> providing the children time to exist without egoic control. This is the
>> highest harmony, but sometimes people don't recognize that Ishvara is at
>> work nor that matter can act in a limited sense without constant egoic
>> supervision.
>>
>> So now we find ourselves faced with a problem. Cosmic intelligence is at
>> work in matter and form, sometimes these are referred to as angels or
>> devas. As we appreciate the Ego's influx into matter, we try to preserve
>> this condition and we desire it because it is pleasureful. Through this
>> desire we stifle the true awareness of the lower lives (which should also
>> interact with the macrocosm) by trying to hold them to us, the Ego.
>
>If we are all this other thing entirely,

What other thing?

non of these errors can happen

What errors?  I never used the word error.

, they would have to be
>deliberate machinations, can't you see this?

Not at all!


If the above was true, one of us returning to the
>mix, would return us all, simply because we are all one.

No.

The alternative is that "it" wants to
>be fragmented and think these things.  If that was true then NO ONE can
return on his own,

>because whether you do or don't is dependent on the desire of IT.
Therefore there is nothing at
>all you or anyone else can do.

This was not in my material at all.  If you are concerned about this, don't
bring it up as a comment to my paper, but write your own new message.

>The above destroys ALL esoteric practice because it is pointless, you are
just a tempory
>fragment designed for the self gratification of the monster IT, and you
will get out when the
>monster IT, tires of the play or adventure.

No, it doesn't. Can't you picture the book discussing a portion of what
occurs in life rather than expecting to be given the whole entire large
picture at once?  Just because this one process is occurring doesn't mean
there aren't many, many more processes at play as well.  You are probably
missing something regarding how our material life builds the ego, because
this is the old familiar way to present life.  We are building souls to
live in some day.  Well, what if those soul qualities exist, but can't be
felt because we aren't far enough in the number of human lives needed to
have acquired access to the soul's vibration finding a home in our material
bodies.  You can think different ideas, can't you, without accepting as
final any of them?

>I am absolutely astounded to near fainting that anyone can give this utter
nonsense the time of
>day.  I can't see how it has any place in real philosophical matters.

Try to calm down and talk politely.

>It is easy to write clever speculations like the above but under scrutiny
they simply cannot be
>true.  The implications pose impossibities or horrors that I am barely
able to contemplate.

I don't see any of them.  Don't read the book if you object so heavily.  It
has nothing but a good effect on me.

>I am sorry but it fills me dread when I see that such type of stuff even
engages the serious

>mind.  I feel that YOU know it is rubbish.

I know that perhaps theosophy isn't your cup of tea if you can't open
yourself up to possibilites without using such offensive words and phrases,
and over nothing, in my mind.

>Angels are real, they are individuals, beings with pure bodies able to
manifest great power of
>the soul.

I'm glad to hear this pleasant thought, but don't see how it follows any
logical argument.

>There are two types of EGO pertaining to the marginal or conditional
being.  1. False Ego,  that
>is the ego  covering our real natures and this developes according to our
experience in this
>alternate universe.
>
>The second type of ego is the true ego, or divine ego.  It is ultimate and
pure self referal
>without the coverings of the material universe.    Without Ego or self
referal you have
>NOTHING.  This is so obvious that I wonder why I am writing it.

Write your own deep message if your thoughts are sent in some opposing
direction.  Why don't you try to find a great quote similar to this:
Without Ego or self referal you have NOTHING.  It doesn't register with me
at all.

 If you try to say there is only
>ONE ultimate self that is all, then you are back to the problems and
outline above and million
>more besides.
>
>I find it difficult to believe Brenda that you give any real credence to
what you have outlined
>above.  It certainly has nothing to do with the Gita.

Do you have to be a big know it all and comment on everyone's work?  Just
try to miss a few if you don't care for them.

Brenda

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